Closure
by MadMar
Summary: Erik is dead. These three words force Nadir Khan to reflect over those he has lost and come to terms with his emotions. Fearing madness, Nadir must will himself to believe there is something to live for. Not slash. Warnings of sucicide and mental illness.


Disclaimer: I do not own the Phantom of the Opera, which is owned by Gaston Leroux. I _do_ own Nadir Khan... in my dreams.

* * *

To will myself from my bed is getting harder and harder as each day passes. Darius doesn't understand why I cannot leave my room. He seems to think it an illness of sorts, which it is. But it's not the sort his outdated remedies can cure. I think it madness, perhaps depression that has set in. But how to explain such emotion to my simple servant? He'll never understand… Never know what it is I feel… I have lost everyone I have ever cared about… Rookheeyah… Reza… Erik… Even the little viscomte and his bride! Lost to me and it is my fault… All of it is my fault… Rookheeyah said once she wasn't ready for a child… I didn't want to wait… Reza was ill, I could have taken him out of Persia for better medical care before things had progressed… Erik, oh, Erik! The warning signs were there. He told me he was dying… dying of love! How was I to know the pain of his broken heart had driven him to kill himself? I found him, a bottle of clear poison clenched in his cold, dead hand. It was poison of his own design. I could have stopped him! I could have… I have time and again… why not now? Is it the incompetence of my advancing age? Still, if that were true, I could have saved my wife and child, but for the blind idiocy of youth! There are excuses every which way I turn and it's enough to make me feel a coward. I fear that I may go the same way as Erik shortly… But Allah does not forgive sinners who do not repent… 

I could pursue clearing the viscomte's name, as I had been trying to do for the first several weeks after the entire incident. But the French police do not believe me. I was fabricating tales to earn a cash reward from the de Chagny's. They'd tell me there are no such things as Opera Ghosts—I'd tell them there is a man they've yet to catch. When they asked his name, my throat would close up. Could I betray my best friend? There is no greater sin than that, it would seem, for he never did forgive me for helping Raoul in the first place. Or rather, if he did, he never told me… The police laughed when I could not provide an answer. They said I could never understand the workings of a police force. They don't know… don't know anything… They simple refuse to believe a dark skinned foreigner. Their xenophobia may put the viscomte in prison for a crime he would never dream of committing. I may rob a young bride of the husband she had always hoped for…

And here I thought I was doing good all along. My entire life, I have spent serving what I thought the greater good. But perhaps it is all my fault that this even happened. Had I not saved Erik from the Mazenderani police… my police force… He would have never kidnapped Christine Daae, never killed the Count Philippe. But had I done that, how much swifter would my own death have come…? No, it is far too selfish to think of myself. I saved a man from certain death, substituted my life for his, nearly dying in his place… I still only speak of myself. Perhaps that is all have left. Myself and my memories. Indeed, I shall go mad from the loneliness in time… I do not want to be reduced further than I am now. I have lost all my loved ones, everything I owned, all connection to the world. If I go mad, none of this will matter and I will die in an asylum—I will rot away in a cell. A cage. Erik said there is nothing more degrading than living in filthy cage. Erik spoke most passionately about cages… What a terrible, ironic way to go! I want to keep my dignity, if I can keep nothing else… I've not even kept my name. To Darius, I am only Master. To the entirety of Paris, I am Monsieur le Persian. To Erik, I was Nadir Khan. He was the last person to know my name and it shall stay that way… Perhaps I am more like him than I think… Taking on a second identity… He said once he was no longer Erik, but the Phantom of the Opera. He denounced his earthly name, and I too have shed mine…

But he shed this life without a thought. I cannot bring myself to follow in suit and this is where our commonalities end. He once told me he had no soul and that I was the keeper of his conscious. I still believe I have it, and I hold it dear to me, for I fear that the last time I will ever see my friend, is the night I found him cold and dead on his floor. Infidels have no place in heaven…

A few weeks ago, I placed Erik's obituary in le Époque. Too wracked with emotion, all I was able to write was "Erik is dead." Now, I feel guilty that I had nothing better to write at the time, for now, with the time to reflect, I want to add more. I want his memory and the memory of my wife and son to live on… I want them to be remembered as I remembered them and not lost into obscurity. Perhaps I am still good for something… perhaps it is unto me to tell their story… To relay it to the world… Perhaps I will not go mad, after all…

Slowly and stiffly I rise from my bed and don the clothes Darius has had sitting on my bedside table for ages. Once dressed, I leave my room to visit Erik's grave one last time. Darius stops me in the hall and hands me a box that has just arrived. I open the note that came with it.

_"Dear Monsieur le Persian,_

_We saw Erik's obituary in le Époque. As you may know, Raoul and I have been uninvited to return to France, even to pay our respects to the dead. I know you have done so much for Raoul and myself, but if you wouldn't mind one last favor: if you could bury Erik with this ring. I have no words strong enough to thank you for all you've done. Thank you._

_Yours truly,_

_Christine de Chagny"_

I could not deny the little viscomtess her wish, for it was Erik's wish too, to be buried with that ring. I just hope he will understand that it was done this way for the better… And that he was buried by the man who would be his brother.


End file.
